all bottled up: nestlé's pursuit of community water

Nestlé’s Pursuit of Community Water

ALL BOTTLED UP

About Food & Water WatchFood & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink. Food & Water Watch works with grassroots organizations around the world to create an economically and environmentally viable future. Through research, public and policymaker educa-tion, media and lobbying, we advocate policies that guarantee safe, wholesome food produced in a humane and sustainable manner, and public, rather than private, control of water resources including oceans, rivers and groundwater.

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ALL BOTTLED UPNestlé’s Pursuit of Community Water

Table of Contents iv Executive Summary, Key Findings and Key Facts About Nestlé’s Bottled Water Business

1 History

2 Case Studies

2 California water in Nestlé’s sights5 Floridafightsback5 Efforts in New England

6 Massachusetts 7 New Hampshire 7 Maine

11 WorkingagainstNestléinWisconsin12 Michiganwateratstake13 OthercommunitiesresistNestlé

14 Conclusion

14 Whatyoucando

15 Nestlé’s Buying Spree

16 Appendix 1: Nestlé Lashes Out Against Documentary Film FLOW

17 Appendix 2: The Bad News with Bottled Water

18 Appendix 3: Businesses Turn to Tap Water, Too

18 Appendix 4: Some Facts: Nestlé’s Bottled Water Business

19 Appendix 5: Possible Global Trade Implications of Groundwater Extraction

20 Endnotes

Executive Summary

Nestlé* takes water from U.S. communities for cheap, bottles and sells it — for billions of dollars in profit — and then dumps the environmental and other costs onto society.

In some cases, the company refuses to listen to citizens who don’t want their water taken. For example, in Maine, the town of Shapleigh denied Nestlé permission to take water. However, residents fear that the company, which already removes hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater from the state each year, may now try to take water from a wildlife pre-serve. In response to Nestlé’s activities, a campaign is underway to limit water mining statewide.

But Nestlé is on the hunt for water across the country, not just in New England. And in some cases, it tries to get groundwa-ter for less than local residents pay.1 In McCloud, California, for example, Nestlé tried to engineer a deal in which it would have paid about one cent to mine and then bottle every 123 gallons of the area’s groundwater — $0.000081 per gallon. By comparison, the average state rate for municipal use of groundwater is one cent per 40 gallons.2 Meanwhile, Nestlé can sell the cheaply acquired water in a 16-ounce bottle for around $1.29, or $10.32 per gallon.3 That pencils out to Nestlé making more than 127,000 times as much money selling a gallon of water compared to what it paid for the right to the water.∗∗

Too often, Nestlé’s gain — its profit — is a community’s loss. Removal of large amounts of groundwater from a region or community, such as Mecosta County, Michigan, can alter the level and flow of springs, lakes, rivers and drinking water wells. That, in turn, can harm the environments and economies that depend on the water.4,5,6

Nestlé does more than just take water out of communities. It contributes to the toll of plastic trash on the planet. For example, despite publicity about its new, lighter plastic bottles, the company might, via its U.S. bottled water brands, be contributing hundreds of millions of pounds of plastic to U.S. landfills each year.7

This report, All Bottled Up: Nestlé’s Pursuit of Community Water, looks at the economic and environmental trouble that Nestlé’s bottled water business has caused nationally and in particular communities across America. It also offers recommendations to consumers and communities about what they can do.

Key Findings

Nestlé extracts hundreds of millions of gallons of water, often for very low fees, that it bottles to sell for thousands •of times more than the cost of tap water. Had Nestlé not pulled out of a contract with one California community, it could have made, in sales of the bottled product, more than 127,000 times its water extraction investment.

As the top company in the bottled water industry, Nestlé is contributing to the pollution associated with plastic •bottle production and with the processing and distribution of bottled water.

Nestlé has greenwashed the environmental effects of its new, slightly lighter plastic bottle. Of the billions of empty plas-•tic bottles that end up in landfills every year, Nestlé’s brands may be responsible for hundreds of millions of them.

Key Facts About Nestlé’s Bottled Water Business

* Nestlé, a transnational corporation based in Switzerland, is the parent company to Nestlé Waters North America, the focus of this report. For reasons of brevity, this report often will refer to Nestlé Waters simply as Nestlé.∗∗ Nestlé’s estimated revenue of $10.32 per gallon of water would be 127,407 times the $0.000081 it paid for the gallon of water. This does not include the company’s other costs to mine the water and bring it to market.

Worldwide (2007)

10.4 billion in sales in Swiss francs ($9.93 billion in •2007 dollars) in worldwide salesMarket share: 19.2 percent•Employees: 33,500•Factories: 100•Producing countries: 38 •

United States

30 percent to 32 percent share of the U.S. bottled •water marketAverage consumption of bottled water per capita: •97.5 liters/year$4.3 billion in North American sales•Nestlé Waters has bottling facilities in 15 states•

See Appendix 4 on page 18 for more information.

Throughout the 20th century, Nestlé acquired more compa-nies in the food industry, developed more of its own prod-ucts, such as Nescafé, and began diversifying with acquisi-tions outside the food industry.11

The company has placed 49 of its total 481 factories in places that are “extremely water-stressed.”12

According to The Economist magazine: “JPMorgan … reck-ons that five big food and beverage giants — Nestlé, Uni-lever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Danone — consume almost 575 billion litres of water a year, enough to satisfy the daily water needs of every person on the planet.”13

A Nestlé management report stated that its “factories worldwide had cut water use to 155 billion litres in 2006, from 218 billion litres in 1998.”14 However, that’s still a lot of water. Converting those numbers to gallons shows that Nestlé’s global food and beverage factories used more than 40.946 billion gallons of water. That translates to 125,658 acre-feet of water. One acre-foot is defined as the amount of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot. That acreage is equal to more than 95,000 football fields.**

According to the same article, Nestlé Waters used 40 billion litres of water in 2006, or nearly 10.82 billion gallons. Half of that was to produce bottled water at its 105 water bot-tling plants for sale in 130 countries.15 The other half was for “operational processes and cleaning.”16 In other words, it was wasted.

In 1969, Nestlé ventured into the bottled water business in Europe by purchasing a 30 percent share in Vittel — Société Générale des Eaux Minérales de Vittel (SGEMV), which at the time was the third largest mineral water company

Nestlé S.A., based in Vevey, Switzerland8, is the world’s largest purveyor of bottled water.* The company was founded in 18669 by Henri Nestlé, a pharmacist who de-

veloped baby food formula for infants unable to breastfeed. At the turn of the century, Nestlé merged with its competitor, the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company, and began operating factories to produce formula and other products in the United States and across Europe.10

History

* Nestlé, a transnational corporation based in Switzerland, is the parent

company to Nestlé Waters North America, the focus of this report. For

reasons of brevity, this report often will refer to Nestlé Waters simply as

Nestlé.

** One acre-foot equals 326,851 gallons. So, 40.946 billion gallons is equal

to 125,658 acre-feet. One acre = 43,560 square feet and a football field

(including end zones) = 57,600 square feet. 125,658 acres X the 43,560

square feet in an acre is 5,473,662,480 square feet. Dividing that number

by the 57,600 square feet in a football field gives an answer of 95,028 foot-

ball fields. The source for the size of an acre compared to a football field is

www.infoplease.com/askeds/big-acre.html.

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in France. In the 1970s, Nestlé acquired “several German springs via Rietenauer and Blaue Quellen AG.”17 In 1992, Nestlé bought the entire French water bottler Perrier.18

Nestlé’s international water operation accounted for almost one-third — $8.83 billion — of total global sales in 2007. (The company had 10.4 billion in sales in Swiss francs in 2007, which was converted to U.S. dollars using the ex-change rate of 1.17764 on Dec. 12, 2008.)19,20 Its 100 facto-ries produce 72 brands of water in 38 countries.21

Nestlé has expanded into the United States, as well. (See text box on page 15, “Nestlé’s Buying Spree.”) Through its multiple U.S. brands, including Arrowhead, Perrier and Poland Spring, Nestlé is the number one water bottler in the United States. Nestlé Waters North America accounted for nearly one-third of the bottled water sold by volume in 2006.22 The company achieved $4.3 billion in U.S. sales in 2007.23,24

With its control of between 30 (30.4 percent in 2006)25 and 32 percent26 of the U.S. bottled water market, Nestlé’s North American bottled water brands contribute to the pol-lution, energy and climate change trouble associated with bottled water production and distribution. However, the company tries to mask its role through clever greenwash-ing. For example, it has touted its lighter-weight single-serve bottled water products as an example of the way to go green.27 In reality, many of Nestlé’s empty bottles are still ending up in the trash.

Consider the following information arrived at from Food & Water Watch calculations: U.S. consumers disposed of some 30.08 billion bottles in 2006. That year, Nestlé controlled 30.4 percent of the U.S. bottled water market, measured in volume of water sold. Assuming that market share in volume roughly equates to the market share in the number of single-serve PET plastic bottles sold, that means 9.14 billion of those bottles could have been a Nestlé brand. Given that about 86 percent of plastic bottles end up in landfills rather than being recycled, 7.86 billion of the empty PET plastic water bottles in the trash could have come from one of Nestlé’s nine domestic bottled water brands. That pencils out to more than 491,250,000 pounds of Nestlé plastic in the trash, rather than being recycled, or, better yet, never produced in the first place. 28

Case StudiesNestlé is prospecting for water in communities across the country. The case studies here document citizen challenges to the company’s search for cheap water.

California water in Nestlé’s sights

McCloud

With Mt. Shasta towering in the background, northern California’s tiny town of McCloud was transformed into a major player in the fight against water mining and bottling. The community of 1,300 people has long been renowned among tourists and trout anglers for its pristine waters. But in 2003, the Squaw Valley Creek watershed that envelops McCloud drew the attention of a much bigger player — Nestlé Waters North America.

Nestlé moved in slowly. Much as Wal-Mart and other gi-ant corporations do when they want to invest somewhere, Nestlé consultants cased McCloud, “joining the right clubs and becoming a part of the community” without properly identifying themselves.29 They focused on evaluating the community’s feasibility for water mining.

Nestlé quietly negotiated a contract with the McCloud Community Services District (MCSD) for the rights both to extract and bottle 500 million gallons (1,600 acre-feet) of spring water annually from the area and to use unlimited amounts of groundwater in its operations.30 In exchange, the company would pay McCloud approximately $350,000 per year and build a one-million-square-foot water bottling facility — the largest such plant in the United States — that supposedly would employ up to 240 people.31,32

However, the deal-making had been done secretly. The people’s representatives on the McCloud Community

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Services District had not told their constituents what was happening.

Instead, only a flyer announced a meeting to unveil the Nestlé plan. More than 100 surprised residents, their heads full of questions, turned up to see what it was all about. They assumed the public session would involve a lot of discussion.33 Instead, residents got a slide presentation by the Nestlé representative and the McCloud town manager. And then it came: A quick, unanimous vote by the elected officials to accept the Nestlé contract.

Residents were furious. Upon careful reading of the con-tract, they felt that the town had written Nestlé a blank check.34 It was time to organize.

The group Concerned McCloud Citizens was formed and sued Nestlé and the McCloud Community Services District because their contract never included an environmental impact report, a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.35

In March 2005, the Siskiyou County Court ruled in favor of Concerned McCloud Citizens. Nestlé appealed and was victorious in an appellate court. This round of legal spar-ring ended in April of 2007 when the state Supreme Court decided not to hear the case.36

That battle may have been lost, but it was only the begin-ning of a longer, bigger fight. Both the Concerned McCloud Citizens and another group, the McCloud Watershed Coun-cil, continued working against the deal.

They brought in scientists to help the community under-stand the hydrology of the region, talked to activists fight-ing the mining of water in other parts of the country and, most importantly, commissioned an independent economic analysis of the Nestlé plan. Their efforts held up the execu-tion of plant construction for almost five years. They found problems with the deal on multiple fronts: 37

The 100-year contact made no provision for infla-•tion, change of water flow or value.

Compared to other community ratepayers, Nestlé •would pay less than its share for water.

Most of the jobs at the proposed plant would not •pay a living wage.

Environmentally, the deal would reduce flows to •various rivers, streams and creeks in the water-shed; it would put fisheries at risk.

Trucks traveling to and from the plant would affect •traffic on the main highway, hurting tourism. There would be 600 one-way truck trips going to or from the plant daily.38

Too much water, too cheap

ECONorthwest consultants produced an analysis for the McCloud Watershed Council. They looked hard at the pro-posed deal and found problems.

The company would have purchased the community’s groundwater for a song: about $0.000081 per gallon ($26.40 per acre-foot).39 Consider that a person who goes into the store and buys the equivalent of one gallon of water in 20-ounce bottles likely will pay anywhere from $8 to $10. That’s a profit-generating deal for Nestlé, but a raw deal for both the community where Nestlé gets the water and for the consumers who buy the product. Meanwhile, in California, municipal users pay more than three times Nestlé’s rate — $0.0002945 per gallon ($96.26 per acre-foot).40

Empty Job Promises

Nestlé promised to employ 240 people at the McCloud bottling plant. But the ECONorthwest report revealed that such a number would be not reached until four to 10 years after construction, and then only during peak season.41

What’s more, in 2005, “a Nestlé representative suggested that 30 to 40 percent of the jobs would be entry-level posi-tions with starting wages of $10 per hour. In 2002, the av-erage wage of production workers at bottled-water facilities


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(workers up through the line-supervisor level) was about $11 per hour in California and about $13 per hour in the United States. These data indicate that production wages at the McCloud facility likely would not climb much above this level.”42

But those sad employment numbers are not exclusive to McCloud. Research has shown that highly automated bottled water facilities often are not job or wage bonanzas. In 2006, the nation’s 628 water-bottling plants employed fewer than 15,000 people, meaning that each plant aver-aged only around 24 employees.43

When a new bottling plant comes to a town, the few dozen jobs it does bring mostly benefit people from outside the community, not the residents who gave up control over their water for the promise of jobs.44 In the long term, one study said, a town’s residents occupy only 10 to 40 percent of all new jobs created by overall employment growth.45

Local residents who do secure jobs at bottled water plants likely will earn low wages. A bottled water employee’s an-nual earnings fall more than a thousand dollars short of what the average U.S. worker makes. Compared to a typical manufacturing job, bottled water workers are losing out — to the tune of $10,000 each year.46

Hydrology Headaches

The ECO Northwest report also found that the Nestlé plant could alter the hydrology of the area and thus the water-shed environment. According to the report:

“Should periods of prolonged drought arise in the next 50 to 100 years, MCSD, its ratepayers, and nearby landowners may bear the costs of acquiring new water supplies, includ-ing deepening wells or drilling new wells.”47

McCloud Pushback Against Nestlé

Nestlé disputed each point in the ECO Northwest report, but in February 2008 it did agree to make some conces-sions, “based on feedback from the community.”48 The com-pany agreed to eliminate from the project description the potential use of groundwater wells by the bottling facility and to conduct additional stream flow and habitat monitor-ing studies. It also agreed to a cap on the overall water use — for both bottling and for other purposes — at the facility to 1,600 acre-feet per year.49

But opponents weren’t satisfied. They wanted to see more.50 That included asking for Nestlé to “initiate a meaningful open public process to reconsider the terms of the contract

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that would include … addressing the size of the proposed plant, the compensation structure for the use of McCloud’s water, the length of the contract, and protection against the possibility of future groundwater use …”51

On May 12, 2008, Nestlé announced that it would drastical-ly scale back its plans for the bottling plant, shrinking it to 350,000 square feet from the previous 1 million square feet. The company also said it would pump only 200 million gal-lons of water per year, rather than the 521 million gallons detailed in the original contract. Citing soaring fuel and transportation costs, the company said it wasn’t economi-cally feasible to build the bigger plant. Nestlé also agreed to monitor a nearby trout stream for two years.52

Less than a month later, Nestlé Waters North America issued a news release with more details about its plans for “community forums, scientific studies and new contract negotiations…” 53

Apparently, someone was listening in Sacramento, the state capital. In July 2008, California’s attorney general sent a letter to the county’s planning director citing the inadequa-cy of Nestlé’s environmental impact report on the project.54

Clearly under pressure, the company stepped out of the contract in early August 2008.55

However, Nestlé has not been defeated. At a September 24 meeting of the McCloud Community Services District, Nestlé said it does intend to build the plant once the two- to three-year environmental impact study is complete and a new contract can be negotiated between the company and the MCSD.56

While the MCSD voted to allow the company to “simulate ‘low flow’ conditions on the Squaw Valley Creek for 4 to 8 weeks by diverting water into Mud Creek,” it then voted to table action on correspondence from Nestlé until its De-cember 2008 meeting.57

Florida Fights Back

In October 2008, Nestlé threatened to sue the Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department over its radio com-mercials promoting the healthful attributes of the city’s tap water, according to the Miami Herald newspaper.58

Although the company denied its threat was motivated by the slowdown in the growth rate of U.S. sales, market data show that Florida is right behind Texas and California in bottled water sales, accounting for the consumption of more than 575 million gallons of bottled water a year.59

In addition to a large sales base, Nestlé operates bottling plants in Zephyrhills and Madison County. It can draw about 2.5 million gallons a day from four springs.60

Nestlé’s lawsuit threat against the utility, combined with the relatively minimal fees it pays for groundwater, have been too much for many Floridians already strongly op-posed to the company’s mining and bottling operations.

Linda Young, director of the Florida Clean Water Net-work, told the Miami Herald: ‘’Tap water is superior in some ways. It’s right there in your house. If these compa-nies think they’re going to come into Florida and threaten citizens or governments when we give an opinion, that’s another reason to make them leave.’’61

Nestlé purchased Zephyrhills, a regional company that gets water from privately owned Crystal Spring in Pasco County, in 1987. In 1996, the owner of the spring blocked public access to the park around it, a popular destination point for swimming and picnicking. In 1997, on Nestlé’s behalf, the owner of the spring requested an increase in the amount of water withdrawals from 301,000 gallons to 1.8 million gallons a day. The community responded by forming an advocacy group called Save Our Springs (SOS). SOS, along with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, filed suit against Nestlé and the spring’s owner to stop the boost in pumping. SOS prevailed and in 1999 the permit was denied. An appeal by Nestlé also was rejected.62

Efforts in New England

New Englanders are right to be concerned about water, especially given that some 40 percent of them depend on wells for their drinking water.63 Some states in the region have passed legislation to deal with the issue.

In 1991, New Hampshire’s legislature passed the state’s Groundwater Protection Act, RSA 485-C. It was intended to enable local governments in the state to protect their groundwater from contamination, which usually happens because of surface activities. To address concerns about water withdrawals, the legislature amended the law in 1998 so that the Department of Environmental Services could regulate withdrawals of more than 57,600 gallons in a 24-hour period.64

Lawmakers in Vermont followed suit. According to The New York Times in its August 2008 coverage of the issue, “once-reliable well-water supplies have become inter-mittent in recent years, with homeowners blaming local developers or mining operations or a bottling operation. In March, the town of East Montpelier postponed any bot-tling for three years. Three months later, in a move that put


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Vermont in the company of a growing number of states, the legislature approved a measure making the state’s ground-water a public trust. Beginning in 2010, anyone seeking to pump more than 57,600 gallons a day will need a permit, with exceptions for farms, water utilities, fire districts and some geothermal systems.”65

But laws and regulations can always be changed or chal-lenged. Nestlé tries to do this by influencing state and local policymakers. For example, when the groundwater protec-tion law went into effect in New Hampshire, lobbyists from the International Bottled Water Association and Nestlé Waters North America showed up to influence lawmak-ers in Concord, the state capital, said Denise Hart, a board member of Save Our Groundwater, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting water in the public trust.66 (Note: Hart became deputy director of the water program at Food & Water Watch in December 2008.)

“We believe that Nestlé has a multifaceted legal and com-munications plan that it tries to implement in states where it operates or wants to operate,” Hart said.67

As of January 9, 2008, the lobbyist for Nestlé Waters North America in New Hampshire was George Dana Bisbee.68 Before beginning his lobbying work, Bisbee served as the acting commissioner for the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. According to the website of the legal firm he works with:

“Among Dana’s achievements at DES was the agency’s renewed focus on strategic planning, performance-based management, the management of environmental informa-tion, and data quality. He worked closely with stakeholders on water law and policy — especially on large groundwater withdrawals, stream flow protection, and wetlands regula-tion.”69

Massachusetts

Nestlé wanted water from the Wekepeke Reservoir in Ster-ling, Massachusetts. In the 1880s, the nearby town of Clin-ton purchased the reservoir and the state legislature passed a law allowing the town to take water from the Wekepeke “to supply itself and its inhabitants with pure water to ex-tinguish fires, generate steam, and for domestic and other uses, and … establish public fountains and hydrants and to regulate their use.”70

However, reliance on the reservoir was short-lived. Af-ter the much larger Wachusett Reservoir was completed in Clinton in 1905, the town could supply both itself and neighboring Sterling. Gradually, Clinton reduced its draws from the Wekepeke until it stopped in 1964.71

Ironically, years of disuse may have made the reservoir an attractive target for Nestlé.

The company arrived in the spring of 2007 and, after conducting extensive hydrogeological tests, decided the old Wekepeke Reservoir would be a good source for its bottled water. Nestlé offered the town from $200,000 to $300,000 and wanted to pump 250,000 gallons per day from the reservoir.72,73 Some activists in Sterling charged that the plan would allow Nestlé to use 8,000-gallon tanker trucks making 60 trips per day on local roads. Nestlé disagreed.74 While the town’s leaders seemed interested, records from the 1880s revealed that Clinton had purchased only rights to surface water, not to the groundwater that Nestlé wanted to mine.75 Logically, it didn’t seem that Clinton could sell or transfer what it didn’t own.

But the residents of nearby Sterling weren’t going to rest their hopes on logic. They were restless and ready to chal-lenge Nestlé, said Ruth Caplan, director of the Alliance for Democracy’s Water for Life campaign. They formed the Committee for Informed Citizens.76 Members of the com-mittee first educated themselves about the issues and then passed on the knowledge to the entire Sterling community via town meetings. Residents deployed opposition letters and petitions to the town’s select board to persuade it to op-pose the project. Meanwhile, Clinton’s town leaders pressed forward with opening the door to Nestlé by putting out a re-quest for proposals in early 2008 for use of the Wekepeke.77

But in the Spring of 2008, to the surprise and relief of Ster-ling citizens, the Clinton Select Board tabled the proposal, according to Clinton Town Clerk Phil Boyce.”78,79

However, succeeding events revealed that nothing is per-manent. Nestlé still wants the water.

In September 2008, citizens learned that the company had hired the Rushing Rivers Institute in Amherst, Massachu-setts, to collect data on the impact of withdrawing water from the Wekepeke watershed. The Institute claims it is doing a pilot project for Nestlé to use in countering wide-spread opposition the company faces in most of the com-munities it has approached about bottling spring water.80

Unfortunately for all the people battling Nestlé in Sterling and Clinton, that grim news grew worse in November 2008.

In the wake of the Massachusetts state government’s deci-sion to cut $250,000 intended to pay for repairs to the Wekepeke’s earthen dams, the Clinton town selectmen discussed revisiting the proposal to sell water to Nestlé.81

However, selectmen Mary Rose Dickhaut, Kathleen A. Sheridan and James J. LeBlanc were against it. According to

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the November 6 edition of the Worcester Telegram & Ga-zette newspaper: “ ‘I think there are too many consequenc-es,’ Ms. Dickhaut said. ‘I thought we had put this to rest.’ ”82

New Hampshire

In Barnstead, New Hampshire, many of the town’s 4,601 people decided they would proactively protect their water before Nestlé or some other company came knocking.83

They learned about Pennsylvania towns that had enacted ordinances protecting people’s rights against pollution from large-scale hog farms. The Democracy School, run by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, showed Barnstead residents how to draft their own rights-based ordinance to safeguard the community’s water.84

It worked. In March 2006, Barnstead became the first municipality in the nation to protect its water by asserting community rights over corporate rights when its residents passed the “Water Rights and Local Self-Government Or-dinance”85 at their town meeting with only one dissenting vote. The measure regards water as essential for the func-tioning of the ecosystem and for the people of Barnstead. Furthermore, it bans corporations from “engaging in water withdrawals” and denies them court-conferred rights of corporate personhood and other Constitutional protections. Voters subsequently amended the ordinance to include the rights of nature.86

Two years later, in the spring of 2008, Nottingham fol-lowed closely behind. Residents there stood up to the state and to USA Springs (which is not believed to be connected to Nestlé) by passing the “Nottingham Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance,” including the rights of nature.87,88

To date, there have been no legal challenges to these ordi-nances.89

Maine

Nestlé gained a presence in Maine through its 1980 acqui-sition of local company Poland Spring, which is the fifth-ranked bottled water brand according to the most recent Beverage World State of the Industry Report ’08 (which cites 2007 data).90 In October 2006, the town of Kingfield approved a new bottling plant, creating a platform for even more growth.91

Indeed, Maine features so much pure spring water that it has been referred to as the “Kuwait of U.S. water,” said Jamilla El-Shafei, a resident of Kennebunk and organizer with Save Our Water.92 Nestlé has exploited that reputation, mining some 700 million gallons a year.93

In September 2008, activists called for an initiative to protect the state’s groundwater from “corporate exploita-tion.”94 At a rally in Portland, state Rep. Rick Burns of


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Berwick promised to introduce an “Act to Protect Maine’s Groundwater” in the 2009 legislative session.95 Jonathan Carter, director of the Forest Ecology Network, added that “the bottled water industry is conducting a ‘greenwash campaign’ to try to convince the public it is a good environ-mental steward.”96

“The time has come for communities in Maine to stop giv-ing away their water to Nestlé,” said Jamilla El-Shafei of Save Our Water. The company often pays less for a gallon of water than a community’s residents do. Towns often go for these deals because they generate revenue for the local water district’s — not the residents’ — use. Unfortunately, the long-term costs and consequences, such as depleted aquifers and a damaged environment, often are not consid-ered.97

El-Shafei sits on the steering committee of the coalition that grew out of the call to action in Portland. The goal is to stop Nestlé’s water mining and testing long enough to learn which communities are located near aquifers and are therefore vulnerable to the company. Once they are identi-fied, residents in those places could be educated about the issue and ballot initiatives launched to permanently shut down groundwater extraction.98 She said this could include developing rights-based ordinances along the lines of the one in Barnstead.

In the face of criticism over Poland Spring mining 700 million gallons of Maine’s water each year, the company

said that is a small fraction of state groundwater. It said recharge from precipitation and runoff amounts to two tril-lion to five trillion gallons. 99

But there is no way to know whether this is accurate, said Mary Taylor, a resident of Shapleigh and organizer with Preserving Our Water and Wildlife Resources. According to Taylor: “No one really has any idea of the size of the aquifer. Let’s say Nestlé’s taking hundreds of millions of gallons of water out of an aquifer and that we have a winter and spring without snow or rain. Well, then it’s not being recharged and, at some point, the sinkholes start and the lakes and streams begin to go dry. We’ve got to dispense with this idea that Maine has ‘extra’ water to be shipped out. When you do that, the hydrological balance is up-set.”100

Research shows that withdrawing too much water from a single watershed can have myriad effects. According to a New York Times article: “A 2007 report by the Ground Wa-ter Protection Council, a nonprofit group, pointed out that, although much is not known about exactly how groundwa-ter moves through geological formations, it ‘typically moves very slowly.’ Replenishment from rain or surface water, or ‘recharge’ as the experts term it, tends to be gradual. Ex-traction of groundwater tends to alter the pattern and speed of natural flows.”101

The Journal of Land Use found numerous issues with removing groundwater from an area. Allowing for mil-

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lions of gallons of water from a community or region to be bottled “conflicts with the establishment of local water re-source protection plans put in place to conserve local water resources. Many areas developed water resource plans in response to increasing populations, decreasing municipal water resources and several years of drought conditions. As a result, it is illegal for local residents to use water at certain times for specified activities, such as lawn irrigation. However, pumping gallons of water away to factories to be bottled and sold across the country directly conflicts with the goals of these programs.”102

Extracting too much water from an aquifer can reduce its levels to such a degree that nearby water sources and wells cannot be replenished. This could include drinking water for a town or city.103

The article goes on to state that some proponents of bottled water have maintained that extracting water for local use is no different than bottling it. But that’s not quite true. In many cases, irrigation and agriculture actually return much water to the aquifer, “while the removal of water for bottling simply acts to reduce the aquifer’s supply without replenishing it for use in the future.”104

Allowing bottling companies to mine too much ground-water can actually lower the water table. That may lead to water wells drying up and requiring new, deeper wells and, of course, more energy to draw up the water. In short, regional drinking water suppliers, farmlands and wetlands feel the consequences of excessive water removal.105

However, the environmental consequences of Nestlé’s water extraction go beyond106 the 700 million gallons of ground-water it takes from the state. 107 Too much of that water — perhaps 200 million gallons — is wasted, according to Mary Taylor of Preserving Our Water and Wildlife Resources.108

Fryeburg

In the tiny rural town of Fryeburg, a small water utility, Fryeburg Water Co., has served the area since 1883, provid-ing spring water to more than 800 customers. In a compli-cated transaction, Nestlé’s Poland Spring gained exclusive rights to pump water from the main well house.109

But the nearby town of Denmark passed an ordinance that banned the trucking of water through the town. So, Nestlé avoided the trucks by building a pipeline from there to a loading station 12 miles down the road in East Fryeburg. This didn’t go over very well: the Western Maine Citizens for Rural Living formed to oppose the station.110

In September of 2004, the town’s Board of Appeals ruled that the Fryeburg Water Company and Pure Mountain

Springs, another local provider of bulk water, did not have the proper permit to extract water. Then, in October, Nestlé’s Poland Spring said it had decided to put on hold its plan to build the plant, blaming a group that was proposing a statewide three-cent tax on individual-sized bottled water drawn from any Maine aquifer. At the same time, the town of Fryeburg began tests to determine how the pumping would affect the Ward’s Brook Aquifer.111

In August 2005, Western Maine Residents for Rural Living started a petition drive to stop Poland Spring’s application for a truck-filling station outside of town, a plan formulated in lieu of building a bottling plant. At a special town meet-ing, residents voted for a six-month moratorium on issu-ing new water withdrawal permits. Despite the vote, the Fryeburg Planning Board approved the application, which in turn provoked the townspeople to start a petition to oust the board. That failed, so instead citizens filed an appeal in court to stop the application. That was in November of 2005; for more than two years it has gone back and forth through various courts.

A resolution as to whether Poland Spring will be granted a permit for the trucking station may now be in sight. On June 21, 2008, oral arguments were heard in a Maine Superior Court and a decision is anticipated in late 2008 or 2009.

Undeterred, Nestlé has set its sights on other Maine towns. In May of 2006, Poland Spring was granted the right to pump more than 185 million gallons of water a year from the Dallas Plantation, which borders the northern Maine town of Rangeley.112 Residents there sued Maine’s Land Use Regulatory Commission after it approved the plan and the case has been argued before the Maine Supreme Court. A split decision upholding the LURC’s permit to Poland Spring was issued on July 16, 2008.113

Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-Wells

When residents of Kennebunk learned that their Ken-nebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water Board would be voting on a contract with Nestlé’s Poland Spring to allow it to pump more than 200,000 gallons of water per day from the Branch Brook aquifer114,115 beneath newly protected land in Wells, it was no longer just people from the three towns who mobilized. The rally held outside the Water Board office on the day of the scheduled vote drew citizens from many surrounding towns and from across the state. Local and state press carried the story. The Lehrer News Hour was there and aired the story several weeks later. The hun-dreds of residents who had turned up at the board meeting questioned a deal that would have sold the water to Poland Spring for less than a penny per gallon.116


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Kennebunk resident and Save Our Water organizer Jamilla El-Shafei was one of those residents challenging Poland Spring. She helped to develop a referendum that voters ap-proved on Nov. 4, 2008. It places a 180-day moratorium on large-scale water extraction and testing on state land in the town. This will give residents an opportunity to develop a comprehensive water extraction ordinance that will protect the community’s groundwater from corporate exploita-tion.117 She anticipates that many of the ordinances will be rights-based and has participated in CELDF’s Democracy School training program.

“The test wellheads are in Wells and Shapleigh, so if we can get moratoriums and ordinances passed, this will give us the chance to educate other communities to look out for Nestlé,” she said.118

Shapleigh

In September 2008, Shapleigh voters approved “a six-month moratorium on testing or large-scale extraction of water” in the town, according to the Sept. 21, 2008 edition of the Portland Press Herald newspaper. This complicated Poland Spring’s plans for a new water source in Maine.119

Quoting the Herald article:

“At a special town meeting, residents voted 204 to 38 in favor of the moratorium, which is intended to give the town time to work on an ordinance to regulate water testing and large-scale pumping. Selectmen can extend the moratorium for another six months if an ordinance isn’t done by next March.”120

“Voters also shot down a proposal for an agreement be-tween the town and Poland Spring that would have given the water bottler access to town land on Mann Road for

testing. That proposal was defeated 183-49, averting a confusing situation that could have developed if voters had approved both the moratorium and the agreement with the company …”121

“Ann Winn-Wentworth, who has been actively opposing the deal, said the Mann Road site is near wildlife preserves that are managed by both Shapleigh and Newfield, where she lives. She said the area contains rare begonias and also at-tracts butterflies that might have been disturbed by Poland Spring testing procedures and extraction that would have involved large tanker trucks.”122

“Poland Spring had hoped to drill about a dozen test wells to determine whether a 150-acre site could be developed into a new water source. If it could, the company said it wanted to drill wells and a pipeline to a filling station on Route 11. That would require another vote by residents to approve that plan.”123

“Winn-Wentworth said Saturday’s vote ‘was quite resound-ing,’ although she is worried that Poland Spring will con-tinue to pursue plans for that area because of all the money the company has already spent on the effort.”124

Shapleigh resident Mary Taylor cautions that the fight is not over.

“Just because the moratorium was approved and testing voted down does not mean Nestlé has left Shapleigh,” she said. On the contrary, “It hired a hydrogeologist to work for the town to write a water extraction ordinance. That’s a blatant conflict of interest.”125

In response, POWWR will edit the drafts of the ordinance. And just in case there’s funny business with a completely different final draft appearing the day of the vote on the or-dinance, she said that town law requires that an ordinance must have two public hearings before it goes to voters.126

Nestlé’s persistence in trying to get Maine’s water frustrates Taylor.

“We want to say no, but Nestlé will not allow citizens to say no.” It keeps the issue bogged down in government bureau-cracy and in the courts.

She thinks Nestlé is attracted to Maine’s water not just be-cause of its purity, but also because people don’t think a lot about water. Most people have their own wells and septic systems, so they don’t have to worry about public control being threatened by private interests.127

She wants one thing to be clear: “Maine citizens have the right to their water and a right to say ‘no’ to selling it.”128

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Working against Nestlé in WisconsinArlene and Hiroshi Kanno were among the leaders in ef-forts to fight Nestlé’s water extraction and bottling it as “spring water” across the road from their farm in the Dells region of Wisconsin in 2000 and 2001, said Arlene Kan-no.129 Perrier, which Nestlé owns, wanted to pump 500 gal-lons of water each minute from two springs in the town of New Haven, in Adams County, Wisconsin.130 It would have then piped the water to a “one million-square-foot plant east of the Wisconsin Dells on Highway 23”131 (across the street from the Kanno farm, which they feared would have meant large trucks on the road throughout the day and night).132 In the opinion of Arlene Kanno, the project would have meant profits for Perrier as it sucked the water out of the aquifer that fed the local Big Springs complex.133

She believes that Nestlé just wouldn’t accept “no” for an answer from the people of Adams County.134 For example, she pointed to the $20,000 that the company paid to the town of New Haven in 2000 to hire legal and engineer-ing consultants to oversee environmental testing and legal implications of removing water from the Big Springs area of southern Adams County.135 And, she said, when the com-pany finally had to publicize its intention at public hearings, Nestlé said it would leave if that was what people wanted.136 That’s what happened: In November 2000, the Adams County Board voted 14 to 3 for a resolution against the extraction of water in the county for bottling or bulk sale.137 The resolution instructed the Board to “oppose any change in zoning for the installation or use of high-capacity wells to pump water for commercial bottling.”138 Nonetheless, a Perrier spokeswoman said after the vote that the company would go ahead with tests on the springs.139

According to the Nov. 22, 2000 edition of the Capital Times [Madison] newspaper: “ ‘Don’t they understand the meaning of the word “no”?’ asked Jon Steinhaus, a Perrier

opponent who lives near the proposed well sites. ‘Now the town has told them and the county has told them. I think it is time for them to heed the will of the people.’ ”140

The Kannos helped spearhead grassroots opposition to Nestlé’s proposed water mining and bottling plant. Resi-dents from both counties responded to requests for time and money. Their small public relations campaign was effective, earning them time on nearby Madison television and radio programs as well as in newspaper articles, edito-rials and columns.141

Early on, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources struck a blow to the majority of residents142 by permitting two wells that would have supplied Perrier’s proposed plant.143 According to the Wisconsin State Journal, “Perrier tested temporary wells in November for 14 days at a rate of 1,000 gallons a minute to gauge the impact on local water levels.”144

At that point, the battle had to go the legal route, accord-ing to the same article: “Hiroshi Kanno, the Newport town clerk and a project opponent, said several lawsuits filed against the Department of Natural Resources and Perrier Group of America also could end plans for the plant.”145

But lawsuits require money. So, the Kannos took out a $20,000 second mortgage on their farm and neighbors pitched in money to sue the state Department of Natural Resources on the grounds that it should not have issued a permit to pump water and should have done a much more comprehensive Environmental Impact Study instead of a more limited Environmental Assessment.146 The Kannos were astounded that the DNR would grant permission to pump such a mega-volume of water since, in their opinion, it could have decimated the extensive wetlands and endan-gered scores of dependent plant and animal species, and very likely would have greatly diminished a shallow recre-


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ational lake just downstream.147 In 2002, a judge ordered the DNR to do a “more thorough environmental impact study” of the project.148

In the end, the lawsuit against the DNR ended in a kind of a draw. Nestlé did not continue with the specifications that the judge decided were necessary; the corporation allowed its permit to expire, and it ultimately filled in its two test wells.149

A new governor came into office and spurred action in the state legislature to address fragile headwaters of streams.150 Although a bill was proposed to protect large springs with flows of greater than 10,000 gallons per minute, it did nothing for smaller springs, and if put to a legal test, might not protect the one in the Kannos’ neighborhood.151,152

By 2003, Nestlé was gone, but not far, Arlene Kanno said. While it had been fighting for a foothold in Wisconsin, the company also was searching for — and found — “spring” water153 in Michigan.154

Michigan water at stake

Mecosta County

The fight against Nestlé in Mecosta County, Michigan, has played out largely in the courtroom.

The story started with the grass roots. In 2000, news leaked that Nestlé was planning to build a $100 million Perrier water bottling plant in the county. The company wanted to pump as much as 262.8 million gallons a year out of the Sanctuary Springs preserve.155 Thus was born the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, a group formed to fight Nestlé and to “preserve, conserve, and protect Michigan’s natural resources.”156 The group was started by Terri Swier,

who had retired to the area in west central Michigan where her family had owned land for generations.

She had lived in the lakeside retirement community for only a little more than a year before she heard about Nestlé trying to come in. “We heard Nestlé was coming to a lake association meeting [in the area] so I went. I wanted to hear what they had to say.”157 She learned that Nestlé had been around the area for the past two years, but apparently lying low. “None of us [who went to the meeting] is a hydrologist, but when Nestlé kept saying there would be no harm to the lakes or streams, we questioned it. That’s when we decided to form a grassroots group to try and fight this.”158

Similar to its operations in McCloud, California, Nestlé had been ingratiating itself in the community, but this time it used a real estate broker rather than a hired gun. The bro-ker tried to persuade some local residents to sell their land. MCWC found out that local and state officials were working with the company on a deal.159

“We went to local officials and said, whoa, stop this,” said Swier. “Put a moratorium on this.” The officials said they knew what was best for the township. 160

MCWC attacked the problem as a zoning issue. It organized a campaign to hold a referendum on zoning changes put in place that would have allowed Nestlé to build its water bottling operation. The citizens rejected the rezoning by a 2-to-1 margin.

Unfortunately, Nestlé maneuvered around the referendum defeat, so MCWC next filed a legal action for a temporary restraining order to stop construction on the plant. It al-leged that Nestlé had failed to obtain the necessary per-mits.161 The next day the judge denied the restraining order but made it clear that if Perrier continued before the legal-ity of its plan was determined, it did so at its own risk.162 With that, the court battle was underway.

In 2001, MCWC sued Nestlé, saying that its water use vio-lated groundwater and riparian property rights and the U.S. public trust doctrine. Despite the suit, which was still pend-ing, Nestlé opened its plant in 2002. On Nov. 25, 2003, the Mecosta County circuit court ruled in favor of MCWC and ordered Nestlé to stop all spring water pumping from Sanctuary Springs by December 16. A motion for a new trial filed by Nestlé was denied, so the company appealed and persuaded the appellate court to let it continue pumping 250 gallons per minute rather than the originally permitted rate of 400 gallons per minute.

In December 2005, the court ruled that harm was being done to the local watershed but refused to follow legal prec-edent that banned selling water from watersheds. Instead,

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it ruled that jobs and the economy were more important. The court did order Nestlé to cut its pumping down to 200 gallons per minute and remanded the case to the trial court to establish pumping levels that assured adequate water supply for the riparian and public use of the stream.163,164

In March 2006, the MCWC filed an appeal to the Michi-gan State Supreme Court. It sought a reversal of the Court of Appeals’ new “balancing test” that allowed Nestlé to divert water as long it outweighed the harm. Nestlé cross-appealed to the state supreme court, saying citizens do not have the right to protect wetlands where their wells are located.165,166

In July of 2007, the supreme court ruled 4-3 that the MCWC did have interests that were impaired and refused to overturn the lower court’s finding of unreasonable use. However, the conservative court agreed with Nestlé’s view that MCWC did not have standing to prevent harm to the wetlands and a lake on the Nestlé property.

It’s important to remember that both the trial and appellate court agreed with the findings of a hydrogeologist who, af-ter reviewing Nestlé’s borehole test and monitoring results, found evidence to dispute its claims that bottling would not harm the environment.167,168 The trial court determined that Nestlé’s mining resulted in more than a 28 percent drop in the flow and more than a two-inch drop in the level of a nearby stream.169

“The issue,” testified Swier, “has pitted neighbor against neighbor, friendships have been severed, and Nestlé has violated our lives either directly or indirectly with telephone polling, private investigators, the FBI going to our homes and a potential Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participa-tion against my son.”170

So the battle continues. Nestlé continues to pump water at high rates and is building another plant in nearby Stan-wood. The MCWC continues in its mission to protect and conserve the environment.

Other communities resist Nestlé

Chaffee County, Colorado

Nestlé also is prospecting for water in the West. As of September 2008 it was working on an agreement with the town of Salida and the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District to remove up to 65 million gallons of water per year from a spring near Nathrop, north of Salida, and then ship it to Denver for bottling, according to an article in the Pueb-lo Chieftain newspaper.171 That’s equivalent to 200 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is the amount of water necessary to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.

According to the Chieftain: “Essentially, Nestlé would take advantage of the Upper Ark’s augmentation plan to use Salida’s water to replace the water it pumps from a well near a spring on property it is buying near Nathrop. Salida would sell the company excess water for 20 years, and the Upper Ark’s augmentation plan would allow the water to be used to replace flows, since Salida’s water cannot be used outside the city without a change in court decree.”172

Corporate Accountability International Fights Bottled Water Across the CountryCorporate Accountability International is a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns challenging irresponsible and dangerous corpo-rate actions around the world. Thirty years ago, Corporate Accountability International organized the first successful worldwide boycott of a transnational corporation in pro-test of Nestlé’s marketing of infant formula to women in poor countries. The Think Outside the Bottle campaign is a Corporate Accountability International initiative that chal-lenges the abuses of the bottled water industry and builds support for strong public water systems.

“It’s no coincidence that the Think Outside the Bottle campaign targets Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage corporation. Nestlé is once again manufacturing demand for a product that is not only unnecessary, but also bad for our environment, bad for our pocketbooks and bad for our public health,” said Gigi Kellett, director of the Think Outside the Bottle campaign.

For more information, visit www.StopCorporateAbuse.org or www.ThinkOutsideTheBottle.org.


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Henderson County, Texas

The “rule of capture” allows private property owners to capture the groundwater beneath their property. In Texas, Nestlé exploited this law in Henderson County, a site of water mining for its Ozarka brand water. A few days after pumping began, a local landowner’s well was depleted. A subsequent lawsuit upheld the rule of capture law and found Nestlé was not liable. In 1999 this was reaffirmed by the Texas Supreme Court.173

Nestlé’s Northwest Adventures

In June 2008, Nestlé failed in its attempt to extract water from a spring that provides water to the town of Enumclaw, which sits at the base of Mount Rainier in Washington.174

After having established plants in 26 towns across the country over the last several years, taking spring water and bottling it in Enumclaw represented a chance for Nestlé to set up shop in the Pacific Northwest, rather than continu-ing to truck bottled water from California.175

According to The Seattle Times newspaper coverage of the issue, Nestlé proposed to: “Collect water from Boise Spring, one of four water sources for the city and sur-rounding area. Build a 250,000-square-foot bottling plant, possibly by the side of Highway 410 or tucked into an office park. Employ about 45 people.”176

But the city calculated that with Nestlé taking water from the spring, by the year 2038 water would run too scarce to meet the needs of new users. Other concerns included increased truck traffic, Nestlé’s business practices and anti-corporate sentiment.177

The Times spoke to an Enumclaw resident for its July 24, 2008 story about the issue:

“The other day, on Enumclaw’s main street, baskets of geraniums hung from lampposts. Bright-green benches lined the street blocks. This is the way Hillary Mitchell likes to see her town, a former farming community at the foot of Mount Rainier. If Nestlé barged in, it would change the whole feel of the place, she said. Big-box stores have already made their mark elsewhere in South King County, on what used to be fertile farmland.”178

But despite its failure to get water from Enumclaw, Nestlé is still around in the Northwest. The company has been trying to tap into water supplies in at least two other Wash-ington communities — Orting and Black Diamond.179

Nestlé said its proposed water bottling plant in Orting, which gets water from three mountain springs, would gen-

erate $375,000 in tax revenue from 2010 to 2011 and an additional $2.1 million over 10 years mostly from develop-ment and utility taxes.180

However, town officials are considering how such an oper-ation would affect local roads, water supply and revenue.181

According to a Tacoma News Tribune article, residents and council members are questioning whether “the local water supply could support a two-line, 250,000-square-foot Nestlé plant. They also wanted to know what toll the plant would take on the environment.”182

Nestlé must still complete environmental impact studies to get permits. Were the town to give its approval, the plant construction would begin in 2010 and then open in 2011.183

At least one council member, Dick Ford, is skeptical of the proposal because it could amount to the town giving away too much of its spring water: “‘It was under our parents’ and our grandparents’ stewardship, and now it’s under our stewardship…It was passed to us, and we ought to protect it and pass it on.’”184

Discussions also are underway with the community of Black Diamond.185

Conclusion

From Shapleigh, Maine, to the California coast and count-less communities in between, Nestlé continues its efforts to remove hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater — often at a low price — to turn into profitable bottled water. However, as we’ve seen in this report, All Bottled Up: Nestlé’s Pursuit of Community Water, citizens are standing up to Nestlé and standing up to protect their water from corporate exploitation.

What you can do

Choose tap water over bottled water whenever •possible.

Contact Food & Water Watch at www.foodand •waterwatch.org to stay informed and get involved.

Encourage your friends, family, university cam-•pus, city government and community groups to break the bottled water habit. Sign the Take Back the Tap pledge at www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled. You can get more involved in taking back the tap by contacting Food & Water Watch at 202-683-2500 or [email protected]

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Join Food & Water Watch’s campaign to urge local •restaurants to stop serving bottled water. Find out how at www.takebackthetap.org/restaurants.

Encourage your local government and businesses to •repair and install water fountains.

Support state legislation to prevent excessive re-•moval of groundwater.

Tell Nestlé to stop using its economic and political •muscle to bully communities into bad water extrac-tion deals. Tell Nestlé you are taking back the tap and that it should get out of the way. Do this at: http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/5915/ petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1427&track=waterhp

Show a movie about citizens challenging Nestlé and •other water bottlers. As the world’s water supply dwindles, communities in the United States and all over the world are orga-nizing to take public control of their water systems and defend their human right to safe, affordable and accessible water. Sam Bozzo’s Blue Gold, Irena Salina’s FLOW: For Love of Water, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kauf-man’s Thirst and Liz Miller’s The Water Front all document an array of characters — from activists to corporate CEOs — who are at the root of a growing

people’s movement to take control of water, a vital resource and a critical part of the public commons. You can get involved by gathering groups of friends and neighbors to see these documentaries. You can also host a screening of one of many films available on loan from Food & Water Watch’s Water Film Library, available at www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/films/library. Blue Gold: www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/ FLOW: www.flowthefilm.com Thirst: www.thirstthemovie.org/ The Water Front: www.waterfrontmovie.com/

Nestlé’s Buying Spree186

In 1969, Nestlé made its first foray into the water business. The company purchased a 30 percent stake in Vittel, then France’s third largest mineral water company.187 From there, it went on a substantial buying spree and is now the largest bottled water company in the world.188 Below is a list of Nestlé acquisitions.

PerrierFounded: 1863Sources/Sales: France/GlobalPurchased by Nestlé: 1992

CalistogaFounded: 1924Sources/Sales: California and other western statesPurchased by Nestlé: 1980

Poland Spring189

Founded: 1845Sources/Sales: NortheastPurchased by Nestlé: 1980

ArrowheadFounded: 1894Sources: California, Arizona and NevadaPurchased by Nestlé: 1987

OzarkaFounded: 1905Sources/Sales: Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and ArkansasPurchased by Nestlé: 1987

Ice MountainFounded: 1987Sources/Sales: MidwestPurchased by Nestlé: 1989

Deer ParkFounded: 1873Sources/Sales: New York to FloridaPurchased by Nestlé: 1993

ZephyrhillsFounded: 1960Sources/Sales: FloridaPurchased by Nestlé: 1987

Imported:

Acqua PannaFounded: 1899Sources/Sales: Italy/GlobalPurchased by Nestlé: 1999

S. PellegrinoFounded: 1899Sources/Sales: Italy/GlobalPurchased by Nestlé: 1999

Pure Life Founded by Nestlé: 2002Sources/Sales: United States & Canada


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Appendix 1: Nestlé Lashes Out Against Documentary Film FLOWDespite winning a court decision in Michigan over its controversial water extraction tests, Nestlé chose to use the issue as the centerpiece of its online video response to the recently released documentary film FLOW (www.flowthe film.com), which investigates the bottled water business — along with pollution, privatization and scarcity — as part of a global water crisis. In the video, Nestlé claims that its tests in Mecosta County, Michigan (See Michigan case study on page 12) showed that extraction would not harm the level and flow of groundwater in the area. However, that is not true, according to the lawyer who represented local opposition to Nestlé’s proposed operations. Aside from the

video, Nestlé also sent representatives to the August and September screenings of FLOW to challenge organizers on site to educate the public about the bottled water issue.

In the video, available at www.nestlewatersissues.com/streaming/, the company “does not disclose that Nestlé lost on these issues at trial,” said Jim Olson, the attorney who represented MCWC in its legal case against Nestlé.190

The company didn’t reveal all of the hydrogeological data showing the effects of the company’s pump tests on ground-water and surface water in Mecosta County.191

The raw data showed that the springs entering the head-waters of the stream from the Sanctuary property lost at least half of their flow during the pump tests, Olson said. Flow through the outlet of the impoundment into the upper reach of the stream dropped by 50 percent. At one point in the pump test, a 65 percent drop in flow was recorded one-third to one-half mile downstream.192

Biologists and wetlands experts determined that such drops in the level and flow of water in the area would adversely af-fect the local environment, including loss of wetlands, dam-age to aquatic habitat, temperature increases and exposed bottomlands.193

According to Olson: “The trial court found major effects in drops in flows and levels, and impairment of the environ-ment, and that Nestlé violated the Michigan Environmen-tal Protection Act. The court found that Nestlé’s pumping caused and would continue to cause substantial harm and interference with riparian interests and was [an] unreason-able use under Michigan water law because of the drops in flows, levels and impacts. In addition, contrary to Nestlé’s portrayals in its video, the court of appeals, even though it relaxed the unreasonable use standard in favor of the company, concluded that pumping at 400 gallons per min-ute was unreasonable and unlawful and affirmed the trial court’s findings of substantial harm and interference.”194

He added that the people interviewed in the Nestlé video are not neutral: “Noah Hall [a lawyer with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center] has supported Nestlé, despite his attestations he doesn’t personally do bottled water, in-cluding Nestlé’s legal arguments to weaken water law to the Michigan Court of Appeals.”195

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Appendix 2: The Bad News with Bottled WaterConsumers, businesses and local and state leaders across the country are becoming aware of the many economic and environmental problems with bottled water. By 1999, chinks began to appear in the bottled water sales jugger-naut. The problems were growing more apparent with an industry considered to be one of the least regulated in the United States.196

Bottled water costs 240 to 10,000 times as much as tap water197,198 that’s just as pure and healthful, if not more so. Buying the equivalent of one gallon of bottled water in single-serve containers costs more than a gallon of gas.199 In fact, as much as 40 percent of bottled water comes from the tap.200

Studies have found “significant contamination” in indepen-dent laboratory testing of bottled water.201 In October 2008, Environmental Working Group released a report that found mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fer-tilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals in 10 popular U.S. bottled water brands.202 Furthermore, spring water is not always pure and it’s not always from a true spring. Some-times, “spring” water originates from questionable sources, such as polluted wells. In one case, for example, bottling companies had been buying water from a Massachusetts commercial spring near a hazardous waste site.203 Samples taken from the spring contained chemicals that likely cause cancer in humans.204

When one factors in the ecological consequences, bottled water is simply a dirty deal. Bottling water is inefficient. Producing a one-liter bottle of water can require three liters of water.205 Annual U.S. plastic bottle production requires

more than 17 million barrels of oil, enough to fuel one mil-lion vehicles on our roads each year.∗206 But it’s not just the production of the bottles that has an ecological impact. The energy used to pump, process, ship and refrigerate bottled water amounts to 50 million barrels of oil, enough to run 3 million cars.207

Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t stop after the last drop is drained from the bottle. About 86 percent of the empty plastic water bottles in the United States land in the gar-bage instead of being recycled,208,209 amounting to about two million tons of PET plastic bottles in U.S. landfills each year.210 Single-serving water bottles and other beverage containers, often used on the go, are recycled at a lower rate than containers typically used at home. Those bottles likely will be incinerated, which releases toxic ash and gases into the air.211

What are the larger implications of using and burning all that energy? For one, bottling water produced more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006, according to calculations by the Pacific Institute.212 This contributes to the ongoing crisis of global climate change.

But that’s not the end of the story. The climate change caused by bottled water production and distribution in turn can affect the replenishment of groundwater in communi-ties across the country. In 2005, the journal Nature pub-lished a study showing how climate change could diminish water sources dependent on melting snow. With warmer periods, earlier snowmelt could mean “much of the winter runoff will immediately be lost to the oceans” rather than to recharge groundwater sources.213

∗ If 50 million barrels of oil is enough to run three million cars, then 17 million barrels of oil would run approximately 1 million cars. 50/3=16.67.


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Appendix 3: Businesses Turn to Tap Water, TooRestaurants and local governments aren’t the only enti-ties that see the value in drinking from the tap. Corporate America, with perhaps a less than altruistic incentive, is motivated by the mighty dollar. For instance, Brita, a Clorox company, has seen sales of their water filter systems rise as much as 11 percent in one quarter in 2007.214 So has Procter & Gamble. Its filter brand PUR reached record highs in 2007. Nalgene Outdoor Products, maker of the popular reusable water bottle carried by most hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts, started a web-based campaign titled “Refill Not Landfill.” Its 32-ounce bottle is now sold with that catchy slogan and sales have shown an increase of as much as 30 percent in the month after the campaign.215 Proceeds from the campaign are now dedicated to buying carbon offsets.

Appendix 4: Some Facts: Nestlé’s Bottled Water BusinessAccording to the Nestlé Waters web site, the company is the “undisputed leader for bottled water in the United States and in Canada, despite intense competition.”216 It manufac-tures 72 brands of bottled water around the world.217

Nestlé’s Bottled Water operation:

Worldwide (2007)

10.4 billion in sales in Swiss francs ($9.93 billion in •2007 dollars) in worldwide salesMarket share: 19.2 percent•Employees: 33,500•Factories: 100•Producing countries: 38•

United States

30 percent to 32 percent share of the U.S. bottled •water market218,219

Average consumption of bottled water per capita: •97.5 liters/year$4.3 billion in North American sales•Nestlé Waters has bottling facilities in 15 states: •California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts and Maine.220

Food & Water Watch

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Appendix 5: Possible Global Trade Implications of Groundwater Extraction

Sensible government oversight of the bottled water industry is clearly needed and long overdue, but when international food companies like Nestlé are buying natural resources and distributing bottled water, international trade and investment rules may trump local, state or national regula-tory efforts. Some trade agreements may limit the ability of governments (especially state or local governments) to enact regulations over the water bottling industry, to impose regulatory burdens (like Maine’s proposed tax on water extraction) on water bottling companies, or to set limits on the sale or commercial trade in bulk water resources. To date, the World Trade Organization rules on services trade (known as the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS) does not cover the distribution of drinking water, al-though some international water companies have pressed to include water services in the current round of WTO negotia-tions. The GATS agreement already has a broad scope that favors commercial investors; the addition of water, water distribution and other water-related services to future GATS negotiations would potentially significantly undermine lo-cal, state and federal government abilities to protect water and water systems as public goods.

International trade and investment rules (most notably under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA) protect companies from public interest regulations. NAFTA gives corporate investors broad latitude to claim that necessary government oversight to protect the environ-ment, drinking water safety or other legitimate regulations are “expropriations” that deserve monetary compensation. The U.S.-based Metalclad company received $15.5 million in damages after a local Mexican jurisdiction prevented the company from reopening a toxic waste dump by declaring the area a natural reserve for the preservation of endan-gered cacti.* Efforts by local or state government to protect aquifers from water bottling companies could potentially be challenged under these investor rules.

* See Food & Water Watch and Institute for Policy Studies, Challenging Corporate Investor Rule, April 2007 at 12.

Finally, the commodification of water resources and global trade in bulk water is increasingly of concern to citizen ac-tivists. Although NAFTA does not currently cover water as a tradeable good, there are efforts to include bulk water trade in any NAFTA expansion.** Moreover, water is included in the list of goods under the WTO’s tariff classification system, which could allow WTO rules and dispute systems to be ap-plied to government oversight of the bottled water industry. The long reach of global trade and investment rules could complicate the efforts of local governments and citizens to hold the bottled water industry accountable.

** Council of Canadians, “Backgrounder: The North American Future 2025 Project,” April 2007.


20

Endnotes1 Stranko, Brian. “Nestlé Wants to Own Your Water: Time for

Californians to Act.” California Progress Report, Nov. 29, 2007. Available at: www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/11/nestle_wants_to.html

2 Stranko, Brian. “Nestlé Wants to Own Your Water: Time for Californians to Act.” California Progress Report, Nov. 29, 2007. Available at: www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/11/nestle_wants_to.html

3 Lohan, Tara. “Rural communities exploited by Nestlé for your bottled water.” AlterNet. May 30, 2007. Available at: www.alternet.org/environment/52526/

4 Boldt-Van Rooy, Tara. “’Bottling Up’ Our Natural Resources: The Fight Over Bottled Water Extraction in the United States.” Journal of Land Use, Vol. 18:2, Spring 2003, Pgs. 278-281

5 Hyndman, Ph.D., David. Associate Professor, Michigan State University. Testimony before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Dec. 12, 2007.

6 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007.

7 Food & Water Watch calculation: According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, in 2006, U.S. consumption of PET bottled water (likely in single serve bottles) was 4.7 billion gallons (Source: State of the Industry 2007, Beverage Marketing Corporation, April 2007). One gallon = 128 ounces. Convert 4.7 billion gallons to ounces (4.7 billion gallons X 128 ounces in a gallon = 601,600,000,000 ounces.) Most PET plastic bottles hold either 16 or 20 ounces. Assume 20 ounces to be conservative with this calculation. Convert those 601.6 billion ounces to bottles. (601,6000,000,000/20 ounces each bottle = 30,080,000,000 bottles). Nestlé controlled 30.42 percent of U.S. bottled water market in 2006. So, calculate how many of those 30.08 billion bottles might have been a Nestlé brand, assuming that market share in volume roughly equates to the market share in the number of bottles sold. Calculation is 30.42 percent (.3042) X 30,080,000,000 = 9.144625 billion of those bottles could have been a Nestlé brand. According to statistics, 86 percent of plastic bottles are thrown away rather than recycled. So, .86 X 9.144,625 billion empty bottles = 7.868.28 billion empty plastic bottles (that might have been a Nestlé brand) ending up in a landfill. Assume that each empty bottle weighs one ounce, so that is 7.868.28 billion ounces of plastic in the landfills. One pound = 16 ounces. 7.868.28 billion ounces/16 ounces in a pound = 491,250,517,376,000 pounds of plastic in landfills might have been attributed to Nestlé.

8 Biography of Henri Nestlé. Available at: http://switzerland.isyours.com/e/guide/lake_geneva/nestle.html

9 Nestlé history. Available at: www.nestle.com/AllAbout/History/AllHistories/1866-1905.htm

10 Nestlé, S.A., “History. ”Available at: www.nestle.com/AllAbout/History/HistoryList.htm.

11 Ibid.12 “Running dry.” The Economist. Aug. 21, 2008. Available at: www.

economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11966993 or www.questjournalists.com/index.php/P15/

13 Ibid.14 Dairy Reporter, http://www.dairyreporter.com/Financial/Nestle-

cuts-water-use-at-manufacturing-plants15 Ibid.16 Ibid.17 “Nestlé Waters. The Beginnings.” Available at: www.nestle-waters.

com/en/Menu/MeetUs/OurHistory/The+beginnings.htm18 Ibid.19 “Nestlé Waters. Key Figures.” Available at: www.nestle-waters.com/

en/Menu/NWToday/FactsFigures/.20 Howard, Brian C. “Message in a bottle: Despite the Hype, bottled

water is neither CLEANER nor GREENER than tap water.” Available at: www.emagazine.com/view/?1125.

21 “Nestlé Waters. Key Figures.” Available at: www.nestle-waters.com/en/Menu/NWToday/FactsFigures/.

22 Conlin, Michelle, “A Town Torn Apart by Nestlé.” BusinessWeek, April 16, 2008. Nestlé’s 2006 market share information available at www.nestle-watersna.com/Menu/AboutUs/Performance/Nestl%C3%A9+Waters+North+America+Share+of+Category.htm

23 “Nestlé at a Glance.” Available at: www.nestleusa.com/PubAbout/NestleAtGlance.aspx

24 Nestlé Waters North America. “Did You Know?” website. Accessed on Oct. 2, 2008. Available at: www.nestleusa.com/nirf/cm2/upload/e972befe-9c27-4b8a-a16b-57ce4e8845c4/nestle-gfgl.pdf

25 Nestlé Waters North America Share of Category. Available at: www.nestle-watersna.com/Menu/AboutUs/Performance/Nestl%C3%A9+Waters+North+America+Share+of+Category.htm

26 Conlin, Michelle. “A Town Torn Apart by Nestlé.” BusinessWeek, April 16, 2008.

27 Bialik, Carl. “Water Bottles Slim Down.” Wall Street Journal Blog. December 14, 2007. Available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/water-bottles-slim-down-238/

28 Food & Water Watch calculation: According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, in 2006, U.S. consumption of PET bottled water (likely in single serve bottles) was 4.7 billion gallons (Source: State of the Industry 2007, Beverage Marketing Corporation, April 2007). One gallon = 128 ounces. Convert 4.7 billion gallons to ounces (4.7 billion gallons X 128 ounces in a gallon = 601,600,000,000 ounces.) Most PET plastic bottles hold either 16 or 20 ounces. Assume 20 ounces to be conservative with this calculation. Need to convert those 601.6 billion ounces to bottles. (601,6000,000,000/20 ounces each bottle = 30,080,000,000 bottles. Nestlé controlled 30.4 percent of U.S. bottled water market in 2006. So, one must find out how many of those 30.08 billion bottles could be a Nestlé brand. So, calculate how many of those 30.08 billion bottles might have been a Nestlé brand, assuming that market share in volume roughly equates to the market share in the number of bottles sold. Calculation is 30.4 percent (.304) X 30,080,000,000 = 9.144 billion of those bottles might have been a Nestlé brand. According to statistics, 86 percent of plastic bottles are thrown away rather than recycled. So, .86 X 9.144 billion empty bottles = 7.86 billion empty plastic bottles (potentially a Nestlé brand) ending up in a landfill. Assume that each empty bottle weighs one ounce, so that is 7.86 billion ounces of plastic in the landfills. One pound = 16 ounces. 7.86 billion ounces/16 ounces in a pound = 491,250,000 pounds of plastic bottle trash that might have been attributable to Nestlé’s bottled water brands.

29 Telephone interview with Alan Snitow, author of Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water, April 2, 2008.

30 “The Nestlé Project. McCloud Watershed Council.” Available at: www.mccloudwatershedcouncil.org/nestle/index.html.

31 Ibid.32 Conlin, Michelle. “A Town Torn Apart by Nestlé.” BusinessWeek,

April 16, 2008.33 Telephone interview with Richard McFarland, March 11, 2008.34 Ibid.35 Lohan, Tara. “Rural communities exploited by Nestlé for your

bottled water.” Alternet, May 30, 2007. Available at: www.alternet.org/environment/52526/?page=2

36 Ibid.37 “The Nestlé Project. McCloud Watershed Council.” Available at:

www.mccloudwatershedcouncil.org/nestle/index.html.38 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling

Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, P. 54.

39 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Fa-cility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, P. 32.

40 Food & Water Watch calculations based on numbers cited in “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, P. 32.

41 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, p. 37.

42 Ibid.

Food & Water Watch

21

43 “Table 2. Private Industry by six-digit NAICS industry and government by level of government, 2006 annual averages: Establishments, employment, and wages, change from 2005.” Employment and Wages, Annual Averages 2006, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, March 2008. Available at: www.bls.gov/cew/cewbultn06.htm.

44 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, p. 42-43.

45 Bartik, Timothy J. “Who benefits from local job growth: migrants or the original residents?” Regional Studies, 27(4):297-311, Jan. 1, 1993.

46 Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2008, op.cit.47 “The Potential Economic Effects of the Proposed Water Bottling

Facility in McCloud.” ECONorthwest, Eugene, OR, October 2007, p. 5.

48 Nestlé press release: “Nestlé Waters North America Makes Important Changes to Proposed McCloud Project; Asks Siskiyou County to Reinitiate CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] Process.” Feb. 11, 2008.

49 Ibid.50 McCloud Waterhed Council press releaes, “Statement from McCloud

Watershed Council, California Trout, and Trout Unlimited in Response to Nestlé Concessions Regarding Proposed Water Bottling Facility in McCloud, California.” Feb. 12, 2008.

51 Ibid.52 Associated Press. “Nestlé Scales Back Massive Mount Shasta Bottling

Plant.” Available at: www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nestle13-2008may13,0,6560431.story.

53 Nestlé press release. “Nestlé Waters North America Announces Additional Details of McCloud Community Engagement, Scientific Studies and New Contract Negotiations.” June 2, 2008.

54 D’Souza, Tony. “McCloud rifts over Nestlé passionate, deep, angry.” Mount Shasta Area Newspapers, Sept. 24, 2008. Available at: www.mtshastanews.com/news/x810459941/McCloud-rifts-over-Nestle-passionate-deep-angry

55 Ibid.56 Ibid. 57 Ibid.58 Morgan, Curtis. “Bottled water firm steamed about Miami-Dade

water ads.” Miami Herald, October 12, 2008. Available at: www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/723788.html

59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 Morgan, Curtis. “Bottled water firm steamed about Miami-Dade

water ads.” Miami Herald, October 12, 2008. Available at: www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/723788.html

62 Clarke, Tony. “Nestlé Water Wars: The Experience of North America.” Notes for presentation by Mr. Clarke, director, Polaris Institute. Available at: http://waterwars.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/a-brief-history-of-nestles-water-battles-in-michigan/

63 Barringer, Felicity. “Bottling plan pushes groundwater to center state in Vermont,” The New York Times, Aug. 20, 2008. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/us/21water.html?_r=2&em&oref=slogin

64 “The N.H. Groundwater Protection Act: RSA 485-C.” Environmental Fact Sheet, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, 2008. Available at: http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/dwgb/documents/dwgb-22-1.pdf

65 Barringer, Felicity. “Bottling plan pushes groundwater to center state in Vermont,” The New York Times, Aug. 20, 2008. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/us/21water.html?_r=2&em&oref=slogin

66 Hart, Denise. Personal interview. Save Our Groundwater board member, Nov. 26, 2008.

67 Ibid.68 New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office. http://www.sos.nh.gov/

lobbyname2008.html69 Pierce Atwood website. www.pierceatwood.com/showbio.

asp?Show=13570 Caplan, Ruth. Personal e-mail exchange. Alliance for Democracy,

Nov. 7, 2008.

71 Ibid.72 NECN.com. “Sterling residents protest Wekepeke Reservoir

proposal.” March 19, 2007. Available at: www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/Sterling-residents-protest-Wekepeke-Reservoir-proposal/1205885622.html.

73 Nugent, Karen. “Selectmen cap Wekepeke water proposal for now.” March 27, 2008.

74 Crotty, Jason. “Water fight already rages over Wekepeke.” The Times & Courier (Clinton, MA). March 19, 2008. Available at: www.wickedlocal.com/clinton/archive/x1092588994

75 NECN.com. “Sterling residents protest Wekepeke Reservoir proposal.” March 19, 2007. Available at: www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/Sterling-residents-protest-Wekepeke-Reservoir-proposal/1205885622.html.

76 Caplan, Ruth. Personal e-mail exchange. Alliance for Democracy, Nov. 7, 2008.

77 Ibid.78 Boyce, Phil. Town Clerk, Clinton, MA. Personal interview, June 17,

2008.79 Schweitzer, Sarah. “Town turns down Nestlé Waters offer.” Boston

Globe, April 17, 2008.80 Caplan, Ruth. Personal e-mail exchange. Alliance for Democracy,

Nov. 7, 2008.81 Nugent, Karen. “Selectmen reopen topic of Wekepeke water sales.”

Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Nov. 6, 2008. Available at: www.telegram.com/article/20081106/NEWS/811060423/1003/NEWS03

82 Ibid.83 Caplan, Ruth. Personal e-mail exchange. Alliance for Democracy,

Nov. 7, 2008.84 Ibid.85 Pibel, Doug. “The Citizens of Barnstead, New Hampshire, Used

Local Law to Keep Corporate Giants Out of Their Water.” YES! Magazine, Oct. 1, 2007. Available at: http://afd-headlines.blogspot.com/2007/10/communities-take-power.html


87 Ibid.88 “Community Commentary: The ‘Nottingham Tea Party’ was

successful.” Foster’s Daily Democrat, April 2, 2008. Available at: www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008772585019

89 Caplan, Ruth. Personal interview. Alliance for Democracy, Dec. 1, 2008.

90 “State of the Industry ’08.” Beverage World, April 2008. Available at: www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/idealmedia/bw0408/index.php?startid=50


92 El-Shafei, Jamilla. Save Our Water, personal interview, October 28, 2008.

93 “Maine activists call for groundwater control.” U.S. Water News Online, September 2008. Available at: www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcpolicy/8mainacti9.html

94 “Maine activists call for groundwater control.” U.S. Water News Online, September 2008. Available at: www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcpolicy/8mainacti9.html

95 Ibid.96 Ibid.97 El-Shafei, Jamilla. Save Our Water, personal interview, October 28,

2008.98 El-Shafei, Jamilla. Save Our Water, personal interview, October 28,

2008.99 “Maine activists call for groundwater control.” U.S. Water News

Online, September 2008. Available at: www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcpolicy/8mainacti9.html

100 Taylor, Mary. Preserving Our Water and Wildlife Resources (POWWR), personal interview, October 29, 2008.

101 Barringer, Felicity. “Bottling Plan Pushes Groundwater to Center Stage in Vermont.” The New York Times, August 21, 2008. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/us/21water.html?_r=1&oref=sloginwww.

102 Boldt-Van Rooy, Tara. “’Bottling Up’ Our Natural Resources: The Fight Over Bottled Water Extraction in the United States.” Journal of Land Use, Vol. 18:2, Spring 2003, Pgs. 278-281


22

103 Ibid.104 Ibid.105 Ibid.106 Taylor, Mary. Protect Our Wildlife and Water Resources (POWWR),

personal interview, October 29, 2008.107 “Maine activists call for groundwater control.” U.S. Water News

Online, September 2008. Available at: www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcpolicy/8mainacti9.html

108 Taylor, Mary. Protect Our Wildlife and Water Resources (POWWR), personal interview, October 29, 2008.

109 Turkel, Tux. “Water Deal Too Sweet?” Portland Press Herald, April 1, 2007. Available at http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/business/stories/070401cover.html.


111 Carkhuff, David. “A Poland Spring Timeline.” The Conway Daily Sun, November 23, 2006.

112 Defending Water in Maine. “Maine’s Water: Is it for Sale to the Highest Bidder?” Available at defendingwaterinmaine.org/Water_flyer.pdf.

113 Perry, Donna M. “Poland Spring Permit Upheld - Supreme Court Supports LURC Ruling on Aquifer.” Sun Journal, July 16, 2008.

114 Aull, Elbert. “Residents Oppose Poland Spring Deal.” Portland Press Herald, June 23, 2008.


116 Aull, Elbert. “Residents Oppose Poland Spring Deal.” Portland Press Herald, June 23, 2008.


118 Ibid.119 Murphy, Edward D. “Shapleigh voters turn down Poland Spring - A

six-month moratorium on water extraction and testing is a stumbling block for the bottler.” Portland Press Herald, September 21, 2008

120 Ibid.121 Ibid.122 Ibid.123 Ibid.124 Ibid.125 Taylor, Mary. Preserving Our Water and Wildlife Resources

(POWWR), personal interview, October 29, 2008.126 Ibid.127 Ibid.128 Ibid. 129 Kanno, Arlene. Concerned Citizens of Newport [Wisconsin], personal

interview, Nov. 7, 2008.130 “Goodbye to Perrier.” Capital Times [Madison, Wisc.], Nov. 22,

2000. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2000/11/22/0011220233.php

131 Seely, Ron. “Perrier puts state bottling plan back on shelf: Adams County plant proposal has been put on hold for at least five years.” Wisconsin State Journal, May 11, 2001. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/madison.com/html/archive_files/wsj/2001/05/11/0105100424.php

132 Kanno, Arlene. Concerned Citizens of Newport [Wisconsin], personal interview, Nov. 7, 2008.

133 Ibid.134 Ibid.135 “Perrier to provide consultation money.” Wisconsin State

Journal, April 2, 2000. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/madison.com/html/archive_files/wsj/2000/04/02/0004030348.php


137 “Perrier rejected again.” Capital Times, Nov. 22, 2000. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2000/11/22/0011220267.php

138 Ibid.139 Ibid.140 “Goodbye to Perrier.” Capital Times [Madison, Wisc.], Nov. 22,

2000. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2000/11/22/0011220233.php

141 Kanno, Arlene. Concerned Citizens of Newport [Wisconsin], personal

interview, Nov. 7, 2008.142 Ibid.143 Ross, JR. “Perrier plans challenged.” Wisconsin State Journal, Feb.

10, 2001. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/madison.com/html/archive_files/wsj/2001/02/10/0102100018.php

144 Ibid.145 Ibid.146 Kanno, Arlene. Concerned Citizens of Newport [Wisconsin], personal

interview, Nov. 7, 2008.147 Ibid.148 Seely, Ron. “Judge rules against Perrier.” Wisconsin State

Journal, Jan 31, 2002. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/madison.com/html/archive_files/wsj/2002/01/31/0201310025.php


150 Ibid.151 Kanno, Arlene. Concerned Citizens of Newport [Wisconsin], personal

interview, Nov. 7, 2008.152 “Groundwater bill debated by lawmakers.” Wisconsin Dells Events,

March 3, 2004. Archive, accessed on Dec. 15, 2008) available at: www.wiscnews.com/wde/archives/index.php?archAction=arch_read&a_from=browse&a_file=/wde/2004/03/03/31121284460.php


154 Seely, Ron. “Perrier puts state bottling plan back on shelf: Adams County plant proposal has been put on hold for at least five years.” Wisconsin State Journal, May 11, 2001. Available at: www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/madison.com/html/archive_files/wsj/2001/05/11/0105100424.php

155 Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation press release. “MCWC Holds Informational Meeting.” Available at: www.savemiwater.org/news/Press%20Releases/pr01.04.28.htm.

156 Ibid.157 Telephone interview with Terri Swier, March 6, 2008.158 Ibid.159 Clarke, Tony. “Nestlé Water Wars: The Experience of North

America.” Notes for presentation by Mr. Clarke, director, Polaris Institute. Available at: http://waterwars.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/a-brief-history-of-nestles-water-battles-in-michigan/.

160 Telephone interview with Terri Swier, March 6, 2008.161 MCWC press release. “Enviornental Group Files Injunction.” June

18, 2001.162 MCWC press release. “Judge Denies Temporary Restraining Order,

But States the Perrier Builds Bottling Plant Now at its Own Risk.” June 19, 2001.

163 Olson, James. Personal e-mail exchange. Attorney representing Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Dec. 2, 2008.

164 MCWC press release. “MCWCWins Protection of Stream System from Court of Appeals. Available at www.savemiwater.org/MAIN%20PAGES/press%20releases.htm.

165 Olson, James. Personal e-mail exchange. Attorney representing Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Dec. 2, 2008.

166 Testimony of Terry Swier before the House of Representatives. Dec. 12, 2007. Available at: www.savemiwater.org/news/Legislation/Congress%20of%20the%20United%20States%2012%2012%2007%20Written%20Testimony.htm.

167 Olson, James. Personal e-mail exchange, attorney representing Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Dec. 2, 2008.

168 Snitow, Alan, and Kaufman, Deborah. Thirst: fighting the corporate theft of our water. Pg. 177. (San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007)

169 Olson, James. Personal e-mail exchange, attorney representing Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Dec. 2, 2008.

170 Telephone interview with Terri Swier, March 6, 2008.171 “Nestlé eyeing Chaffee County spring water: Bottled water giant

would rely on deal with Salida, Upper Ark district for up to 65 million gallons a year.” Pueblo Chieftain [Colorado], Sept. 6, 2008. Available at: www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/09/06/3636346.htm

172 Ibid.173 Boldt-Van Rooy, Tara. “ “Bottling up” our natural resources: The

fight over bottled water extraction in the United States.” Journal of

Food & Water Watch

23

Land Use, 18(2):267-297, Spring 2003.174 Solomon, Cara. “Nestlé water plant? Not in our town, Enumclaw

says.” The Seattle Times, July 24, 2008. Available at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008043087_nestlewater10m.html

175 Ibid.176 Ibid.177 Ibid.178 Ibid.179 Santos, Melissa. “Enough water for all in Orting? Nestlé, city

officials continue discussions on proposed bottling plant” Tacoma [Washington] News Tribune, Nov. 1, 2008. Available at: www.thenewstribune.com/news/government/story/525984.html

180 Ibid.181 Ibid.182 Ibid.183 Ibid.184 Ibid.185 Ibid.186 “Nestlé Waters. North America. Our Brands. ” Available at: www.

nestle-watersna.com/Menu/OurBrands/Arrowhead.htm. 187 “Nestlé Waters, Our Heritage, Vittel.” Available at: www.nestle-

waters.com/en/Menu/MeetUs/OurHeritage/188 “Nestlé Waters.” Available at: www.nestle-waters.com/en/Home.

htm.189 “Poland Spring.” Nestlé Waters website. Available at: www.nestle-

watersna.com/Menu/OurBrands/Poland+Spring.htm190 Olson, James. Personal interview. Attorney representing Michigan

Citizens for Water Conservation, Nov. 24, 2008. 191 Ibid.192 Ibid.193 Ibid.194 Olson, James. Personal e-mail exchange. Attorney representing

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Dec. 2, 2008.Olson, Jim. 195 Ibid. 196 Mulvey, Kathryn. “Big Water’s Boondoggle.” AlterNet, March 21,

2006. Available at www.alternet.org/environment/33803/.197 “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” Natural Resources

Defense Council, March 1999. Available at: www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp

198 Franklin, Pat. “Down the drain: Plastic water bottles should no longer be a wasted resource.” Waste Management World, May-June 2006. Available at: http://container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsarticles/plastic/2006/5-WMW-DownDrain.htm”

199 Food & Water Watch calculations: one gallon = 128 ounces. A 20-ounce bottle of water costs about $1.50. The cost of 128 ounces or one gallon comes out to $9.60, about three times as much as gasoline that runs about $3 per gallon.

200 “Bottle Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” National Resources

Defense Council, 1999.201 “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” National Resources

Defense Council, 1999.202 “Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38

Pollutants.” Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C. October 2008. Available at: www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater

203 “Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?” National Resources Defense Council, 1999.

204 Ibid.205 Azios, Tony. “The battle over bottled vs. tap water.” The Christian

Science Monitor, Jan. 17, 2008. Reporter cites Waste Management World and Pacific Institute. Available at: www.csmonitor.com/2008/0117/p15s03-sten.htm

206 Larsen, Janet. “Bottled water boycotts: Back-to-the-tap movement gains momentum.” Earth Policy Institute, Dec. 7, 2007. Available at: www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update68.htm

207 Ibid.208 Arnold, Emily and Larsen, Janet. “Bottled water: Pouring Resources

down the drain.” Earth Policy Institute, Feb. 2, 2006. Available at: www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm

209 “Bottled Water: FAQ. NRDC.” Available at http://nrdc.org/water/drinking/qbw.asp.

210 “Bottled water pricey in more ways than one.” Worldwatch Institute, May 2007. Available at: www.worldwatch.org/node/5063

211 Arnold, Emily and Larsen, Janet. “Bottled water: Pouring Resources down the drain.” Earth Policy Institute, Feb. 2, 2006. Available at: www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm

212 “Bottled water and energy: A fact sheet.” Pacific Institute. Accessed on Nov. 6, 2008. Available at: www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/bottled_water/bottled_water_and_energy.html

213 Barnett, T.P., Adam, J.C., Lettenmaier, D.P. “Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions.” Nature. Vol. 438, 303-309. November 17, 2005.

214 Deutsch, Claudia. “Two Growing Markets That Start at Your Tap.” The New York Times, November 10, 2007. p. C6.

215 Ibid.216 “Nestlé Waters. North America.” Available at: www.nestle-waters.

com/en/Menu/NWToday/OurMarkets/North%20America.217 “Nestlé Waters. Key Figures.” Avaialable at: www.nestle-waters.com/

en/Menu/NWToday/FactsFigures/.218 Nestlé Waters North America Share of Category. Available at: www.

nestle-watersna.com/Menu/AboutUs/Performance/Nestl%C3%A9+Waters+North+America+Share+of+Category.htm

219 Conlin, Michelle, “A Town Torn Apart by Nestlé.” BusinessWeek, April 16, 2008.

220 Response to written questions submitted to Mike Lawrence, executive vice president, Cone, Inc., a PR firm used by Nestlé Waters North America.

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